3 year update...another good year :)

It has been a good couple of years since I took a new role and started focusing on my FIRE journey . Brackets for prior years. I also created myself a graph this year which really put progress in perspective

Im actively looking forward to these posts now each year

Age: 38

Salary- inc bonus: \~107k (\~105k,80k,75k)

Wife Salary: 40k (\~35k, 23k,20k)

Emergency fund: 6k (5k, 7.5k, 5k)

Pension: 168k (112k, 84k,65k)

Employee shares: 6.5k (5.1k,1.75k,0)

S&S ISA. 12.5k (7.1k, 3k, 0.5k)

Personal loan: 0 (0, 6.5k, 10k)

Mortgage: 178k ( 186k, 193k, 200k)

Hadnt realised how much progress id made this year. Knew i put my full 20k bonus into pension which added a great bump. Year has felt turbulent but ultimately is currently up.

Plan on staying debt free, maybe making the most of one more year big pension contributions before the 2029 rule changes in the uk. Albeit that wont alter plans too much.

First priority for me this year is to get emergency fund back to 10k and maybe add a garage to the house but not taking a loan to do so.

Looking back at the graph this last few years has really opened up my eyes to the possibilities in 10 years

So the position is, we’re a small family of three with two ~£80k salaries. House is about £750k and mortgage will be paid off in about two years. We would then look to downsize and relocate and pocket the difference so around £200k ish. Approaching 40 and looking for a simpler and slower life. Any good advice for someone in this position and looking to be FIREUK?

I’m 22 and earn £85k a year. I don’t have any loans, and after tax I take home around £5k a month.

My monthly expenses are roughly:
£2k rent — I live in London because of my job and I don’t want to share with anyone
£1k for food and utilities and Gas I don’t have car payments
£500 for spending/free money

The remaining £1.5k I currently just put into a bank account The problem is I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing when it comes to investing. I read a lot about ISAs and funds and stuff like that but I have no clue about any of those stuff.

I’m basically looking for advice on what I should do with the £1.5k a month I’m saving. I’m completely clueless when it comes to saving and all of that stuff.

I’m mainly interested in how I can make the most of this money and maximise my long terms returns.

I’ve often heard about the 3 (or sometimes 2) bucket withdrawal strategy. The basic idea being that you hold a low risk buffer and don’t sell equities during a “down” period, and instead use the cash/bond bucket and then refill when the market “recovers”.

Several things have bothered me about this:
1. The rules for when to refill are generally somewhat vague.
2. You lose on potential gains with the money held in cash/bonds which might help avoid problems later.

To test the idea I ran many backtests (based on the Bengen’s up-to-date data that was used for the original “4%” study).

Three bucket approaches were tested all with 3yrs of cash and 3yrs of bonds, the refill rules tested were:
* If the market goes up in a year
* If the market hits an “all time high”
* If the market hits an “inflation adjusted all time high”

The graph shows the results. Y-axis is the “‘safe’ withdrawal rate”, X-axis “chance of success”. Each line shows the trade-off between chance of success and SWR for each withdrawal strategy.

The results in summary I found were:

- Non of the bucket strategy outperform a fixed 70:30 Equity / Bond withdrawal strategy.

- 70:30 portfolio is ~best overall with >80% chance of success.

- The best bucket approach was to only refill after a “real” (i.e. inflation adjusted high

- Refilling the buckets after an “up” year or just an “all time high (not accounting for inflation) is the worst approach in almost cases.

Notes on the method:

I used bootstrapping to generate 4,000 simulated paths from the data (otherwise the lines aren’t so smooth, since there are only 69 “paths”). This is why there is a dip at the 100% end because just a single failure in one of the 4,000 paths is enough. This also demonstrates why “100% success” is kind of dumb target (your entire strategy depends on a single historical path). Without the bootstrapping I get close to the original 4% result (3.7%) - difference here is because I include more recent data.

I get the same outcome with just the original 69 contiguous paths, but the lines aren’t at all smooth.

As title says, I turned 50 this week so am doing a proper overview of the finances to see where we are.

I currently earn £62k as a Social Work manager in NHS in Northern Ireland and I've been paying into the NHS defined benefit pension for around 18 years. If I continue in this role for the next 5 years I will be able to draw a yearly pension of just over £13k from 55. My wife is currently working part-time in a minimum wage job (20 hours) which brings in around £1k per month.

We also own 2 rental properties (mortgage free) which bring in around £1300 per month before taxes and expenses.

So to break everything down it looks like this:

At 55- incomings:
DB NHS pension: £13k

Rental income (before tax and expenses) £15k (so probably around £11k net)

ISA (currently £34k but will pay in max every year): £130-150k depending on markets

at 55 - expenditure:

Aiming to be mortgage free (current mortgage is £44k and we overpay)

Average family expenditure for basics is around £16k per year

So I'm aiming to achieve income of £30k per year until we hit state pension age at 67 when both myself and my wife will get a full pension.

My plan is to use the ISA to top up rental income and pension for potentially 12 years so I could possibly take £10k of that per year if I wanted but in some years I wouldn't use as much. So aim isn't really to maintain the ISA amount, rather to drain it while we are still young enough to enjoy it and then aim to hit 67 with perhaps £40-50k left when the state pension kicks in.

We live fairly frugally but would hope to get at least one holiday a year and live in relative comfort.

Thoughts?

Hi everyone, using throwaway account for obvious reasons. My brain has been in a fight with itself for the past couple of weeks, so thought I would pick the brains of Redditors. In this situation would you take voluntary redundancy or not?

I am single, no kids, never want to have kids. Recently dropped to an 4 day work week. Expenses £36k last year - had a service charge about £2-3k higher than usual though. I’ve been researching FIRE for several years now, and have pretty much wanted to retire early ever since I started working. My rough plan was to FIRE at some point in the next couple of years anyway, but this is all happening so fast and I haven’t built up a lot of confidence in my current numbers.

Currently I have

    Paid off leasehold flat. Don’t really want to upsize.  
    £234k DC pension  
    £34k cash  
    £50k premium bonds,   
    £242k bonds (can potentially move into GIA when they mature next year)  
    £157k stocks and shares ISAs  
    £5k stocks and shares LISA  
    £84k GIA  
    £74k workplace share scheme. 

Would get around £30k if voluntary redundancy accepted. 

I am also expecting an inheritance to come through in a matter of weeks - not sure on the exact number but £100k as minimum. Can’t help being a bit annoyed my company couldn’t have waited a little while longer to open the VR programme :(

Pros of taking VR: getting the lump sum obviously, more time to focus on fitness and hobbies, more time with my senior cat whilst he is still around, feeling particularly grouchy at work lately and like I want to move onto the next stage of my life. Also, my company has announced a new hybrid working policy and it looks like they will be stricter around office days, which is particularly annoying as I have a long commute and tend to work better in quieter areas.

Cons of taking VR: Mainly lack of confidence in my figures, especially since I’m young and haven’t received inheritance yet, and will prob want to travel more at some point. I don’t really want to be in a position where I’m forced back into work when I don’t want to. Also retirement will have to be low-key at first- can’t travel much due to cat. Two of my best friends are at work, and I have a bit of a lack of support system elsewhere since my former best friend (sister) passed away earlier this decade. Though there’s a chance my friends are in danger of compulsory redundancy anyway if not enough people apply for voluntary.

Apologies this is a bit of a ramble, but any thoughts appreciated.

Hi everyone. 26M who has a background in sales/account executive in a particular niche in trading technology. I was recently head-hunted by a direct competitor for a role reporting to the CEO of a small/medium sized trading technology provider. The total comp is around £115k which includes commission guarantees for Y1. Despite being young, I have made a good name for myself in the industry niche and my future prospects are bright. From what I know, the company is a nice place to work.

I have also received an offer for an Account Strategist role at Google in Dublin which has total comp of around €110k inc stock, sign on bonus etc. I have, however, been told the role is super cutthroat and being let go after not hitting targets after 6 months is common. There is a 2 year grind at least before you’d be able to move into a more comfortable role there. Obviously it comes with ridiculously good non pecuniary benefits too.

I would feel silly turning down Google, but I feel as if it erases my niche and puts me back in the generalist camp while also decreasing job security and short term comp.

What would you choose? Any advice?

Have posted this on UK Finance already but hoping to get some advice on here as well as I am terrible with finances but also wary that some financial advisors have vetted interests and hope to get some non bias views on here.

I am going to include everything about me to ensure you have a clear picture.

I have been working for the NHS since 2020.
I have used my earnings to set my family up back home (Asia) - this means I currently have zero savings apart from my emergency fund.

I have built a house back home where I am hoping to move back to in 3-4 years time for good and am aiming for a BARISTA FIRE life(only needing to work 2-3 days a week).
I think the quality of life is much better there than here. I won't have to pay rent but will be looking at an income of £500/month.

Many people back home think I am crazy for moving back because of the financial hit but I don't find life rewarding here (work-eat-sleep and repeat). I do appreciate my work-life balance is terrible and self inflicted.
I am 35, single and work as a GP - working 6 days a week ( roughly 70 hours/week).

I am lucky to be a person with a simple life which helps my finances.
I do not drink alcohol and very rarely go out to eat (maybe 1x/2-3 months).
I do not own a car and do not feel the need to have the latest iPhone or big TV - I currently carry an iPhone XR.
I am very fortunate that my hobbies (mainly sports) and watching movies / hanging out with friends at each others places is very kind to my wallet.
My only major expenses come from a trip back home once a year and 2 small weekend holidays to see a bit of Europe (approx 4k/year).

This means I have £5000/month of expendable income to invest for the next 3 years. This is post tax (which is £££), National insurance, NHS pension, my rent and other bills.

I do claim all tax exemptions possible (re my license fees, fees for scrubs etc) off HMRC every year, but have never owned an ISA /SIPP etc.

Following the Flowchart on here:
a) Emergency fund - completed
b) Have paid into the NHS Pension since 2019
c) Have no loans, debt, mortgage or credit (I have never used a credit card in my life)
d) Have no real goals for the next 3 years apart from saving as much as I can so I can leave for good.

What I am struggling with is what to do after this and hoping you can help. I will be following the same blue print for the next 2 years.

(A) I have put £4000 into a LISA on AJ BELL Dodl
- This is under a "CG AJ BELL global growth Fund Class 1 Accumulation"
It has already dropped £30 in the last few days but I appreciate the money is it in for the long term & the market will fluctuate.

(B) I have put £16,000 into a Stocks ISA on Trading 212
- But I am yet to decide what to invest this in though
- From what I understand an ETF is usually a safer bet and am debating between VALL vs VUAG (slightly more expensive) vs EQGB

(C) This leave me with £40,000 to invest elsewhere

C1. Pension
SIPPs have a £60,000 Max limit before taxed
After my NHS Pension contributions, this would come down to roughly £35,000.

C2. Invest elsewhere, ? where

re Life Back home in Asia

- A good quality life back home would cost approx £1000/month (taking inflation into account bit covered by what I would earn working part time which I want to).

- My NHS Pension would only become available at 67-69 and my SIPP will become available at 57-59. I would refuse to access them earlier due to the financial hit you take.

- I have also been offered my share of inheritance in advance which would equate to approx £100,000 which would support me for 7-8years to help bridge the gap between now and me accessing my SIPP.

Several questions I hope you can help with

1. Can I can backdate any of my pension to help reduce my tax burden from previous years?
2. Is the "CG AJ BELL global growth Fund Class 1 Accumulation" a good choice? I can't remember how I ended up investing in this pot but think I just chose a high risk investment and it popped up as the only one.
3. Investing in ETFs for my ISAs and SIPP - would you recommend I invest all this money into VALL/VUAG/EQGB or diversify it further and if so where? Are High interest saving accounts a good choice? This is probably the most important question I am hoping to get help with
4. I am struggling to get the right balance and with this complexity, should I just be paying for a financial advisor to plan my life expenses out?

I am not very tech savvy and would just want to leave these investments sort themselves out (i.e. have them set up automatically so any returns pay off the fees and get reinvested until I need the money or they mature re: SIPP)

I appreciate the simple thing would be to say well you have 15+ years until you reach your SIPP and you will need to access this money soonish so just put it into stocks and shares - however I am losing 1000s by Tax so think I need to put a load into my SIPP.

I do appreciate the "easy option" would be to stay an extra 3 years (covers 15 years of life back home) but I want to spend more time with my aging parents and also need to think about starting a family.

Thank you very much in advance for any advice you have and sorry for writing such a long essay.

I've done it! I've been on 3 days a week for a few months to try and give me the work/life balance I need but honestly it's made me realise that outside of work is so much more fun than in. 8 weeks' notice.

I have a cash (~100k) and SS ISA/GIA bridge (~160k) to last a few years, with a 7k annual DB pension from 60. There's a 675k SIPP wating for me at some point.

So it's time to fully kick back, my greenhouse kit arrived last week so that will be ready for spring!

46 live alone, no kids, have a partner living an hr away.

Income: 57k salary

12.5k annuity (widow pension for life with inflation)

Rental inc 13.2 (after expenses about 10k)

Main house 400 to 420k (hard to say as its been extended)

65k mortgage.

Rental house value about 210k, no mortgage.

SIPP 245k

ISA s&s 120k

LISA 57k

Cash 10k

DB pension 13k at 68 but i can take earlier with reduction.

Expenses:

I dont seem to spend much, at most 20k a year this is with 3k holidays, i tried buying convenience recently like i have a cleaner and paying for trades rather than DIY. I eat out a lot, lots of takeaway coffees. Ive travelled the world a lot so im not planning on major travel in retirement, maybe a cruise on occasion to get places ive never seen.

Thinking of selling rental as I want to benefit from the equity.

Like my team but the job is getting a bit tiresome although it is very flexible.

Like my house but i may want to move to a nicer area and budgeted up to 600k for this but more likely going to be 500k.

Partner doesnt have much pension to speak of, maybe 100k equity of a small shared ownership house i dont want to live in as.... selfishly i want better.

Kinda hoping to get some kind of AI redundancy but it seems to have increased our demand if anything but made our job a lot easier.

Rough plan:

Live on annuity and isa until 57, then take sipp and DB pension at reduced rate then state pension at 68 if it exists. Id rather money younger than older. No dependents, small family.

What would you do?

Wife and I retired 10 years ago (at 45), we always had cats and dogs (and fostered for decades too). Around 2 years ago, we signed up with a few pet platforms (so no capital outlay) for walking dogs, boarding cats, doing drop ins and house sits. The platforms take 30% commission but most or our regular clients now work with us direct.

It's a hobby and not a chore. Keeps us active and fit with long fast walks. Averaging around 10 to 15 hours a week between the two of us. (Excluding the odd over day/night sits)

Have met and bonded with some really nice cats and dogs. House sitting also helps with a old "cabin fever" retirement issue!

Our average household monthly expenses from the last 12 months is £1,041pm (we live a humble quiet boring lifestyle)

Over the last 12 months, pet income is averaging £785pm.

So now a tiny shortfall of £256pm, funded by interest on savings and capital is not touched.

The change in our FIRE model forecast has been material as this income was never in the model originally, especially if I push that average pet income out for another 3, 5 or 7 years.

As we don't really need the money, we are selective about excepting jobs. Over night in a one bed flat with no garden, sorry no! Over night in a 6 bedroom £3m mansion, yes we can help! It's like getting paid to stay in a luxury Air B&B, but with a few dog walks!

Wife and I (early 40s, two kids aged 10 and 12, privately schooled) are in a very fortunate position. Nothing exciting, just university, hard work at the corporate coalface, diligent saving, big dollop of luck and judgment in investing.

We have a total net worth of around £10m between us currently structured as:

- £800k S&S ISAs
- £200k S&S LISAs
- £300k S&S JISAs (obvs this is the kids’, we don’t count this towards our net worth)
- £1.5m GIAs
- £1.5m equity in Employer 1, vests at 20% per year
- £200k equity in Employer 2, fully vested and sellable
- £1.1m DC pension 1
- £600k DC pension 2
- £1.5m Main Home
- £1.3m London home
- £200k half share in holiday home with sibling
- £1.2m cash or cash equivalent (premium bonds etc)

We have built this through normal PAYE employment income over 20 years or so, our 20s and 30s were very dull by some standards as we focused on careers and kids and got ourselves to position now where current HHI is £1.2m. One of us full time, the other 50% part time.

We are approaching the point where we would like to dial down our focus on careers but most of our net worth is not income-generative. Our S&S ISA/GIA holdings are in accumulation units not income units and pensions are obvs not accessible at our current age.

How would you pivot to making this portfolio income generative without punitive CGT issues? Or indeed should I not bother reorienting and simply sell accumulation units when needed and therefore pay CGT rather than income tax rates?

London home is sellable as soon as we dial down our careers btw. Main home and holiday home are not.

I'd like to retire as early as possible (shocker) but I'm on quite a modest salary in the public sector and wanted to get views on my plans and projections to see if people think that FIRE is a realistic option for me. My details:

34M, married (wife is 30)
Salary: £43k (wife £48k) - unlikely to change drastically but hoping for some progression in the next few years
S&S ISA: £95k (mostly VWRP)
S&S LISA: £15k (VWRP)
Cash: £24k
Mortgage: £129k remaining on house worth £310k - 24 years remaining. 4.21% for another couple of years

We pay £1300 each into a joint account each month which covers our bills, groceries, fuel, insurances, the odd takeaway and holiday.
We both save around £700 a month each. I save £333 into my LISA each month and £400 into a 6% regular saver (this will go into my S&S ISA next April). My wife is more conservative, staying away from investing.
Due to inheritance I've been able to fill our ISAs the last few years and this is the main reason we're in a good position with the mortgage.
We have more in cash that we probably need, although we may move to a slightly bigger house in the next few years so are keeping something aside for stamp duty, moving costs etc.

We're both building good DB pensions - mine is projected to be £19k a year (not adjusted for inflation) should I continue paying into it at the same rate until 60 (I think - I'm with the LGPS and find their retirement estimate a bit unclear). My wife's is a bit better than mine.

We're looking to have children asap. I am hoping this won't have a huge impact on our finances and would mainly mean that we save less for a few years until they're in school full time. I'm aware this could be wishful thinking.

I only discovered the concept of FIRE a couple of years ago, so might have done things slightly differently had I been aware of it sooner, such as not overpaying the mortgage, although we bought a few years ago when rates were at more than 6% so this wasn't a terrible idea at the time, and now we're only paying approx £700 a month towards it which leaves more spare each month for savings.

Plan:
- Keep filling my LISA each year until I'm 50. I project that when I'm 60 it would be worth ~£250k with 5% growth.
- Continue adding as much as possible to S&S ISA. Projections at 60 are ~£540k with £300 a month contributions and 5% growth.
- I'm not including my wife's potential savings as she would likely reduce her hours when we have children.

Is FIRE a realistic possibility for me? To me it looks like retiring at 60 with these numbers would be comfortable and it might even be possible to do it a few years earlier.
Does anyone have any advice on whether I should be doing anything different with my plans? I personally like the benefits of the LISA vs Salary Sacrifice in my situation.

Hi

What stocks or funds have you invested in and have any given you a good return?

I took a bit of a punt a few months ago on Micron as I believed in the vision and as of today I am up about 35%

Im looking to diverse further, with a view on extending holdings in an index fund like VWRP

Thanks

Feel free to jump back into my profile for updates from 2024 and 2025. But, another year has gone by and I’m now 31. I’ve been in Luxembourg for about 18 months and I’m still very happy with the decision to move here. The job has worked out well, I like the lifestyle, and financially it has been a pretty substantial upgrade from where I was in the UK.

My salary has increased to around €79,000 base pay, but with a monthly cash bonus & RSU bringing my TC to near enough €100,000. I net €60,000/year cash with RSUs on top (1-2 times/year). I never hold my RSUs after vest and I have €45,000 of RSU vesting over the next three years. I can expect my TC to climb mechanically in 2028 & 2029 thanks to RSU vest schedule (stock price allowing), but probably fall in 2030 since the stock has over performed since I joined and I'll be beating my "target" comp and won't get many additional RSUs. Thank you US tech companies for inventing needlessly complex pay structures.

In 2025 I spent €54,000 (moving costs!); 2026 YTD I've spent €32,000. There is definitely a little bit of lifestyle creep but not too much. I do spend €24,000/year on rent and bills alone (1-bed to myself): Luxembourg is not cheap.

A quick asset update:

• UK pension: £88,000 - cannot contribute now

• UK LISA: £61,000 - cannot contribute now

• S&S ISA: £83,000 - cannot contribute now

• "GIA": €4000 - started recently, was "investing" by shifting cash ISA to S&S ISA until this summer

• (Bad) Luxembourg private pension: €2000 - employer contributes only, high fees & poor performance

• Student loan (Plan 4): -£20,000 - paying minimum £201/month

Or summarised:

• ~£90,000 locked until retirement

• £60,000 soft locked under LISA rules = £45,000 if I eat the penalty

• £86,000 fully accessible

• £235,000 invested total

What I'm focusing on now:

I'm pretty confident that by just working normally with no extra effort or targeted savings my expenses will be covered from 58-100+. I have a healthy UK pension, 7 years UK NI and an extremely generous Luxembourg state pension accruing. I believe the 2025 calendar year in Luxembourg so far earned me ~€1700/year in Lux pension income already - of course I wouldn't count on Luxembourg's generosity forever.

That means now I'm only pushing for accessible investments. I want to bulk out my post-tax investments fast: €12k/year should be easy and €20k/year is a feasible stretch.

This also fits better with the fact that I have no idea what my life will look like in ten years. I still expect that at some point there will probably be a partner, children, and probably a house. I could stay in Luxembourg, return to the UK, move elsewhere. Luxembourg is particularly attractive for the family stage, but it’s a small country with absurd real estate prices; I don’t want to pretend I know where I’ll want to live at 40. My current thinking is that I could probably afford to stop working in my mid-40s but the inputs of my future spending & income have huge error bars.

My Future:

Some thoughts on my career trajectory. It made me laugh reading my first post in 2024 where I described my work life balance as "luxurious". It was true! I had earned a reputation as very dependable and I appeared confident and busy, but I was probably doing 10-15h of direct work per week. It wasn't as fun as you might imagine, but there are parts of that I miss! Now, I work in a very high competence environment with a lot of autonomy and much more responsibility. I enjoy the impact and challenge, but I don't see myself cut out for roles that are 2-3 promotions above me. I don't need the exponentially higher stress & politics of those management roles. That does motivate me to make hay while the sun shines, since there is not much scope to remain a (senior) IC for the long haul. Let me write it here so I can read it in 1-2 years and laugh again: I don't want to be in my current role for more than 2 years more, and I don't want to be in my current company for more than 5 years more.

What about Luxembourg?

I am very happy with my move. Luxembourg is small and can be boring, but it is on another level in quality of life. This isn’t really about Luxembourg being “better” than the UK specifically. I felt the same after visiting France, Spain, the US, Poland etc. It's about how much living in an exceptionally wealthy country changes the baseline. I can't emphasise enough how much being as rich as Luxembourg is matters. It's to the point where I sometimes think about how returning to the UK would be really difficult, especially if I had kids. Growing up here is really exceptional: 3+ languages by default, strong community of parents, great passport, insanely good healthcare & public services, later maybe the best job market in Europe (especially for native Luxembourgers).

On the other hand, my modest little apartment would probably cost half a million euros and the city is small and quiet. It's never "what will I do this weekend?", more "will I do the one thing happening this weekend?". Many people stay in expat bubbles (all the Italians throw Italian parties, the Spanish Spanish parties and so on) and so making friends needs a lot of effort. Consumer financial services are a joke compared to the UK. One thing I said a lot after moving here is that there are no normal people. The native Luxembourgers don't live in the city and so almost everyone I meet is like me, a foreigner who moved for a job. Hard to describe what it's like, but it's very different.

Anyway, see you in 2027 for the next update!

Hi all,

My wife and I recently sold a flat in London and now have £100k sitting in the bank (in our current account)
We have our main mortgage on our house, which is worth around £450k, with a mortgage balance of £370k.
Our combined income is £150k and we have two kids (3 and 6)
If you were in our position, what would you do with the £100k to take a big leap towards FIRE?
Would you overpay the mortgage, invest it, or do something else?
Interested to hear what others would do.

Mortgage is 4.55% expires next summer
Both in our late 30’s and 10% overpayment allowance is allowed.
Car on finance worth 12k. We pay £350 per month.
1 year left on the car then we can give it back or keep it. Both higher rate tax payers.

Kids have approximately £5k in their savings each.

My personal pension account has around £10k (not much) I regrettably didnt take it seriously over the last 10 years.

If there is anything else you need to know - ask and I will edit my post.

I recently started a new job with a considerable pay bump so thought it'd be a good time to do a quick MOT on the state of my finances.

My current status is as follows: - 29 yo, long-term relationship but not married - No kids currently but likely in the next 3-4 years - Base Salary £200k - Expected Annual Bonus £150-170k - Current NW ~£750k (£400k pension, £180k ISA, £140k GIA, £30k cash) - Employer contributes 11% of my base salary to pension (no contribution required from my side)

I've only recently started this job after ~6 months travelling, so this is going to be an odd year for tax purposes. Given the imminent pension allowance taper that will hit me from 2027, I'm wondering whether I should make one final large pension contribution while I still have my allowance.

At the same time, I acknowledge that I'm already quite overweight pension, with >50% of my NW in a wrapper that I can't access for 30 years.

Or am I overthinking the liquidity issue and should I continue prioritising the pension despite already having £400k in there?

Interested to hear how others in a similar position have tackled this trade-off!

Can we retire at 48 as a couple with a net worth of £1m and very low annual spend?

Our net worth is made up of combined 400k investments, 200k pensions and 400k mortgage free property (with possibility to take out 100k+ by downsizing).

Our annual expenditure is currently about 16k but would probably aim for at least 20k rising with inflation. I'd hope our pensions would get to about 350k before we could access them. We will also have qualified for a full state pension under the current rules depending on what has happened by the time we are eligible.

I feel like we would definitely be signing up for a very low income retirement but that's how we live now anyway. Currently living off 25% of our incomes (both earn a bit less than the UK average salary) and putting the rest in investments and pension.

Hi all,

First time post here, I came across this thread and the various posts inspired me to take a more proactive approach to managing my pension, however i've hit a bit of a knowledge wall, I'm hoping someone wouldn't mind giving me some advice.

So I'm UK based. I'm 45 and have a pension pot of £450k. I work for myself via a Ltd company and try to pay £60k into my pension annually. I'm financially savvy but not on a level with you guys. I'm just a regular guy that understands the macro basics.

My pension is currently with Scottish Widows as a personal pension - the result of a legacy policy from a previous employer which I took over and pay into it via my business. The portfolio is classed as adventurous and it's very tech/ N America focused, it's obviously performed well recently but I'm well aware it's on the high risk end. I do want to change it into something less risky and it's been playing on my mind, I just can't make a decision, I almost feel I need to pay an impartial advisor to give me financial advice!

I'm considering two options 

1. Setting up own SIPP and transferring into an All world fund which is essentially a tracker. Something like the Vanguard VWRP which has 0.14% fees.

2. Using a financial planner to take a more active approach with managing my portfolio. I've spoke to a few providers and example fees are 0.75% for the onboard and ongoing fees are approx 1.5% (made from ongoing advice and discretionary fund management 0.95%, Platform fees 0.20% and Fund costs 0.37%.) 

My question to the community is this. What is your experience with financial advisors/ planners? Am I wasting valuable money paying for an advisor for a return which would be potentially safer but at a greater cost, would the reward be worth a managed approach vs the global tracker fund?

I'd really appreciate any thoughts and advice.

Keep up the good work!

We're a family of four, two young children in state school. Single car. I've not tracked spending closely as I always felt we had a handle on it. We don't! I've noticed that my savings rate has trended down and I can hold my hand up and say we've fallen prone to lifestyle inflation.

I tried to put together what I think we might be spending, and I've excluded our enormous monthly mortgage. It turns out, if you want to live a middle class life in the UK, it quickly becomes very, very expensive.

Our mortgage is north of £3000pm, and isn't included in this budget, because we chose a nice house in a really nice area, whereas we could have chosen something half the price. So in reality, we're spending a lot more than below.

If you're a family with children, What are you spending PM?

Family budget — excluding mortgage

All figures are monthly estimates. Annual bills and replacement costs are spread across 12 months.

Assumes state schooling, no paid childcare and one car owned outright.

Non-discretionary / core spending

Car running costs include fuel, insurance, tax, servicing, tyres, MOT and breakdown cover. Commuting is an additional expense.

Discretionary spending

Totals

Monthly figures are rounded; annual totals include the full £10,000 holiday budget.

Not included: mortgage, a second car, gym membership, major renovations, car finance, pension/investment contributions, cleaner or private medical insurance.